Walter Myers - Lockdown

The other one was a Puerto Rican guy. He said he did the maintenance work, but he looked like he couldn't see too good out of his thick glasses. There were sandwiches and soup for lunch. It was good. Or at least better than what we had at Progress.

Three thirty and I put the bucket and pickup thing back in the closet and washed up. Mrs. Silvey told me to wait on the first floor for the van. When I got there, a delivery guy was bringing packages and kidding around with the receptionist. I thought I would like to do that, have a regular job and kid around with people I met.

Mr. Pugh showed up at five minutes to four and made a motion for me to turn around. Sucker didn't have to do that and he knew it.

I turned around and he handcuffed me with the receptionist looking. That made me feel bad, but I knew he wanted me to feel bad.

He didn't say nothing on the way back to Progress, but I knew what he was waiting for. He took me into the reception room right away and closed the door.

"You know the routine," he said.

I stripped down and bent over while he searched me.

It was almost not worth it. I hated being searched, having Pugh or anybody putting their hands all up in me. But I knew if I got through the two months working at Evergreen and didn't mess up, I had a chance for an early out when my hearing came up. That's all I thought about as Pugh messed with me. Getting back out on the street again.

When I got back from Evergreen Mr. Cintron asked me how I liked it and I said I thought it was okay.

"Just okay?" he asked.

"They treated me okay," I said. "I wasn't locked in my room or nothing, so I guess it was okay."

"Well, that's your choice, Reese," he said. "You can spend the rest of your life in some kind of institution like this or you can be out there in the world. And what you got to keep in your head-what you got to focus on-is that 'okay' is a lot better than being in a place like this."

That was all good and everything, and I knew he was right, but I didn't know what was going down with me. Mr. Cintron talked about it like it was something easy. You go this way or you go that way. Maybe for him it was easy.

He was cool, though. He was tall, about thirty-something or maybe even forty. He looked Spanish but he sounded pure white. He was the only one at Progress who I believed most of the time.

There were only twelve of us in Section A, and in the morning Mr. Pugh marched us to breakfast. When Mr. Wilson marched us to breakfast we could have our hands down by our sides, but when Mr. Pugh took us anywhere we had to have our hands behind our backs with our wrists crossed like we were handcuffed, even though we weren't. The breakfast was the same old stuff. Scrambled eggs, oatmeal, juice, and bologna. It was okay. I liked it when the bologna was burned sometimes. When I was home and Icy made breakfast, she burned everything. She liked to see the food cooking. It was burned but I didn't mind.

The word was that something was going to happen after dinner. When we finished breakfast and took the trays to the window for the dishwashers, I asked Play what was happening.

"Diego wants to jump Toon into the 3-5-7s," Play said.

"Toon?" I asked. "He ain't nothing but twelve!"

"And what's he going to do in the 3-5-7s?" Play said.

"Shut up!" Mr. Pugh hollered from across the room.

We lined up and went back to our quarters. I checked everything real quick because I didn't want any trouble. The floor was swept, the bed made, and the sink clean. I knew that as long as everything went down correct, I would stay on level one and in the early-release program. If I started getting demerits and fell into level three or four, then I wouldn't have any privileges and would have a harder time getting out early.

Eight o'clock and we went to school. Me, Leon, Diego, and this white girl named Kat were in the same class. They said she'd cut up a guy who was trying to mess with her and drank a soda while the guy was lying on the floor bleeding.

Play was fifteen and a nice guy, but he was facing juvy life for shooting a guy. His lawyer was still working on his case. Diego was fifteen and was doing a year for breaking and entering. Leon was fourteen and was in for shoplifting and punching a security guard. Toon was in because he wouldn't go to school or listen to nobody. He said his parents had been accountants in Mumbai before they came to the States. His real name was Deepak but he didn't look like a regular kid-he had this round face and big glasses like a cartoon character, so we all called him Toon. He liked that.

But jumping him into the 3-5-7 was just stupid. The 3-5-7 was a prison gang, and I couldn't see Toon being in no gang. I knew if they tried to jump him in, he would just fall and get beat up.

We did school, which was bull because we weren't learning anything. Play was too messed around with his case to even think about what was going on in the Revolutionary War, and nobody else really cared. I listened because I just wanted to do better than the others. That's how bad I wanted to be out in the world.

Mr. Wilson had us for lunch, and we knew we could talk if we weren't too loud. I asked Diego why he wanted to jump Toon into the 3-5-7.

"Why you want to know?" Diego came back.

"I just asked you a question, fool," I said.

"If I kick your ass will I still be a fool?" Diego looked at me across the table. "Don't be calling me no fool."

"If I stab you about forty-five times can I call you a fool?" I asked him.

He sucked his teeth and looked away.

"I think he wants to jump in Toon because Toon's the only one in our section he can beat," Play said.

We all cracked on that but I thought it was true. Diego kept on talking about being in the 3-5-7 crew but I didn't believe him. They didn't do the light stuff he was always talking about. He was about my height but he had a mustache that made him look older. I knew what was going down with him, though. Mr. Pugh said that a guy from the 3-5-7 was scheduled to come to Progress Center. Diego knew the kid, and the way he was talking about him, it was like he was scared of him or something. So I figured he was going to try to punk somebody out to make his reputation.

I hoped he didn't mess with Toon, because I liked the little guy. I couldn't stand up for him and risk getting disciplined, though.

I can do some business with my hands if I got to. Willis, my brother, used to do some boxing and we used to spar around in the gym. Then he got shot and didn't have any more interest in fighting. I didn't like to fight in a ring or anything like that. It just didn't appeal to me, but when my father started hitting me all the time, I was glad I knew a little something. At least how to cover up so you won't get your face all messed up. Luther, that's my father's name, is the kind of dude who gets to drinking and telling himself he's doing you a favor by beating you up. That's why I hate him so much. You ain't supposed to be beating up your kids. Even if you are half drunk.

After lunch we had school from 12:15 to 2:15, which was more of the same. Some of the kids are smart, but they be having other things on their mind. Toon acted like he wanted to go to school. I don't know why he didn't want to go to school when he was out in the world, but I know this: He had a reason.

We had group 2:30 to 4:30, and they brought in a black guy who told us we could be something special if we tried. Same old, same old. He said he used to be a drug dealer. Play asked him what kind of watch he was wearing, and as soon as he had to look down at it, we knew he didn't have anything going on.

After group we went back to our section, and the guy who was supposed to be in the 3-5-7 was there. Diego called him Cobo. He was wearing a gray jumpsuit instead of an orange one, which meant he wasn't going to be at Progress very long. You could see Diego sucking up to the new guy and the new guy strutting around like he was bad.